ARMY ORGANIZATION 43. General.—In the foregoing sections the principles on which armies were raised up to the time of the World War have been examined. Before passing on to consider what changes or modifications the grim needs of a prolonged and deadly war occasioned, some outline must be given of the methods on which those armies were organized and commanded, how their order of battle was built up, what laws governed their subdivision into bodies and groups and the composition of those groups.
Military forces may be treated of in three categories : the fight ing troops, the auxiliary or administrative troops, and the com mand and staff. The three principal fighting arms were still in 1914, as they had been for some centuries, cavalry, artillery and infantry. The work of the engineers had increased in importance owing to technical developments—signal communication by cable or wireless had, for instance, become one of their most important responsibilities—but though they worked in the front line, fighting was with them only a secondary role; machine guns had not yet been developed into a separate arm, but were incorporated into the cavalry and infantry ; mounted infantry were only an improv ization, to which the peculiar circumstances of the Boer War gave prominence for a time ; and the air force was as yet unarmed. Infantry remained the predominant partner, to further whose efforts to close with the enemy was the main task of the other arms. The administrative troops comprised the supply, medical and veterinary services and so forth. The activities of the fighting troops and the administrative troops were controlled and directed by the commanders and their staffs. Details of the organization, tactics and functions of these various component parts will be found under such headings as ARTILLERY, CAVALRY, INFANTRY, SUPPLY AND TRANSPORT, STAFF. Only enough, however, will be said here to show the general principles involved in assembling these parts into an effective whole.
An essential problem in organizing an army is to determine the proportions which the principal arms should bear to one another. These proportions—generally expressed in the terms of so many sabres and guns per i,000 rifles—had undergone comparatively little change since 187o. In the French and German armies the proportions ruling for the field armies in 1914 may be taken roughly as about 120 sabres and 6 guns per I,000 rifles. The Austrian and Russian armies were stronger in cavalry and weaker in guns, about zoo sabres and 4 guns per I,000 rifles. The propor tion of technical troops was increasing with scientific develop ments and improvements, such as wireless telegraphy, aircraft, mechanical transport and searchlights. The administrative serv ices, too, gained in size and importance as warlike equipment grew more complicated and as the demands of the fighting troops for ammunition and technical stores grew heavier. This scientific expansion of the means of war greatly enhanced the advantage of a State with large manufacturing establishments and an indus trial population on which to draw for the technical corps over States such as Russia and Austria, where industrial development was relatively low. But how vital a factor industrial strength was to prove in the forthcoming conflict was not yet fully realized, since it was believed that wars would be short and sharp and that the issue would be decided before the reserves of munitions accumulated in peace were exhausted.
44. Organization of the Fighting Troops.—The first step in military organization is to form each arm independently into units; these units are then combined into what—for want of a better word—are termed formations, (in French, grandes unites), the lower of which usually consist of one arm only, while the higher include all arms.
To take the infantry first : the unit adopted by all armies was in 1914, as it had been for many years, the battalion of about 1,000 men, subdivided into four companies, the company again being subdivided into three or four sub-units, each of which con stituted a subaltern officer's command (varying from about 5o to 75 men). The British army had retained an organization into eight companies up to 1913, when it also adopted the Continental system of four companies. Though the battalion was still spoken of as the unit of infantry, it had long ceased to be so tactically. The definition of a military unit for tactical purposes is the largest body which can be commanded and controlled on the battlefield by the voice of one man, and it was as such that the battalion had originally been constituted at its existing size. Once command has to be exercised indirectly, by means of a staff conveying mes sages to a number of subordinate commanders, the body ceases to be a unit in the tactical sense and becomes a formation. Thus it had already for some time been recognized that the company had supplanted the battalion as the tactical unit, while many foresaw that the real tactical unit was now the subaltern's command of about 5o men. Similarly the functions of the fire unit (i.e., the largest body whose fire could be controlled in action by one man) had descended from the company to the squad or section of eight to ten men under a junior non-commissioned officer. The battalion was therefore tactically no longer a unit but a formation. It was the normal European practice to group three battalions (in Russia four) into a regiment ; two regiments formed an in fantry brigade (six battalions—in Russia eight) ; and two in fantry brigades were included in a division. The British grouping was different and will be referred to later.
Of cavalry the unit was the regiment, organized into a number of squadrons. The strength of the squadron (the tactical unit) was in all armies standardized at approximately 15o, subdivided into four troops, commanded by subalterns; but the number of squadrons varied in different armies from three to six (Great Britain and United States three, France and Germany four, Italy five, Russia and Austria six). Thus the strength of the regiment varied from a little over 50o up to I,000. A cavalry brigade com prised two regiments (in the British army, three) ; and two or three brigades constituted a cavalry division.
The unit of artillery was the battery, normally of six guns (France four, Russia eight). The subaltern's command was the section of two guns. Three batteries usually constituted a group (illogically named a brigade in the British army) ; and two or three groups a regiment.
As stated above, a subaltern officer's command was usually about 5o men. Originally the duties of junior officers had been mainly to inspire the men around them by their personal example. But as the range and effectiveness of weapons extended the area of the battlefield, the tactical handling of the combat passed into the hands of the junior leaders, by whose quality the effectiveness of an army was largely measured. The next grade of officer was the captain, whose command (in European armies) was a com pany, a squadron or a battery; then came the major, who com manded a battalion of infantry or a group of artillery. Regiments of all arms were commanded by colonels. In Great Britain bat teries were commanded by majors, companies and squadrons by majors or captains; battalions, cavalry regiments and artillery brigades by lieutenant-colonels. The other combatant arms and the administrative services were organized and commanded on similar principles. The army of the United States, it may be noted here, had in peace no higher organization than the regi ment.
45. The Grouping of Units.—Generally speaking, the num ber of units grouped in a formation should not be less than three nor more than six. In a formation composed of two units only, the influence of the commander of the formation is small ; while it has been found by experience that six units is the maximum that can conveniently be commanded and administered by one headquarters. The student who wishes to make a closer exami nation of the arguments on this question is referred to the chapter on "Order of Battle" in the second book of Clausewitz's famous work On War. The normal number of units in a group is three or four, and the relative merits of the "triangle" or "square" as a tactical formation have been widely discussed. The principle of economy of force is often best served by the "triangle," i.e., two units in front line with a third behind ready to add its weight at the most favourable point ; but the "square," in which the two front-line units have two units behind them, certainly facilitates reliefs in the battle and enables the superior commander to retain a reserve in hand for a longer time.
The higher formations are the brigade, the division, the army corps, and, in war, the army. The brigade is composed of one arm only, the others of all arms. In European armies the infantry brigade in 1914 consisted of two regiments (six battalions) with a total of 6,000 to 7,000 combatants at war strength. The cavalry brigade consisted of two regiments, with a war strength of from 1,500 to 2,000. The artillery brigade comprised two regiments (12 batteries), some 2,500 to 3,00o men. The British infantry brigade of four battalions and the artillery brigade of four bat teries corresponded with the Continental regiment of those arms; the cavalry brigade was of three regiments, but, since the regi ments were smaller, its war strength was approximately the same as that of the Continental cavalry brigade. The commander of a brigade was on the Continent usually a major-general, in the British army a brigadier-general (but the artillery brigade was a lieutenant-colonel's command).
Divisions were of two kinds. A cavalry division included a staff, two (exceptionally three) brigades of cavalry, some batter ies of horse artillery, a detachment of engineers, and occasionally a battalion of light infantry, with a total strength approaching 5,00o. An ordinary division (sometimes termed an infantry di vision) is the smallest body fully organized for the conduct of an operation of war, complete with all arms and with all the necessary administrative services. In all the principal European armies the basis was the same, two brigades of infantry (12 battalions, in Russia 16). The main difference between the di visions of various armies lay in the allotment of artillery. Thus, while the German division had 72 guns, the Russian had 48, the French 36 and the Austrian only 24. These discrepancies did not necessarily mean a much smaller total proportion of artillery; they indicated rather a difference in organization. Thus in the French and Austrian armies a larger portion of the artillery was left at the disposal of the army corps. Practically all divisions had some cavalry allotted to them, usually a regiment; and all had a detachment of engineers. The division was self-contained in ad ministrative services, and its total strength varied from about 17,00o to 20,000 men. The British division had the same number of battalions (12), but they were organized in three brigades of four battalions each; the number of guns was 70.
Some armies—the Japanese, British and Belgian, for instance— had no higher organization than the division. The views of Jomini and Clausewitz were that this was suitable for armies up to 100,00o men. But all the larger armies were organized into army corps both in peace and in war. The normal army corps consisted of two divisions, a varying quantity of artillery and certain technical and administrative units. The Russian army corps in cluded a division of cavalry. In numbers, the army corps amount ed to something over 40,000 men all told. It was held to represent the largest body of troops that could march along a single road and come into action in one day. The commander was a lieu tenant-general. It will be noticed that the normal European organization—two regiments to a brigade, two brigades to a division, two divisions to an army corps—violated the principle enunciated at the beginning of this section that a group should consist of not less than three units. The brigade was, tactically, an unnecessary link, and the divisional commander could have handled the four regiments direct. The disadvantages of organ izing the corps into two divisions was recognized, but it was held that a corps of three divisions would be too cumbersome a body for open warfare and would necessitate two roads being allotted to a corps on the march. The development of mechanical trans port was, however, modifying this view.
Finally, the size of the military forces of the Great Powers made necessary a further organization in war, the grouping of army corps into armies. These did not exist in peace and their composition in war was kept secret. Whereas the other higher formations were uniform in their composition, the composition of an army was variable, dependent on the strategical plan. It might include from three to six corps. The Japanese in Man churia formed armies of a number of divisions, omitting the army corps link. It may here be mentioned that a uniform organization of divisions and army corps, while greatly facilitating command and staff work, assists the enemy's intelligence service to compile a correct order of battle. Napoleon for this reason always strictly avoided regularity in the organization of his forces, and his corps varied very widely in strength.